Complex multichannel event promotional strategies, white boards full of ideas and shiny new marketing toys are wonderful ways to fill a Monday in the office.

However sometimes you just need a few quick wins.  Simple, easy to implement and free event marketing tactics that can be done this week, without the need for further discussion or meetings.

Here are five free event marketing ideas you can work on this week.

1. Promote your event hashtag

You should have an event hashtag.  If you don’t, then create one first, and then promote it!

Use it in all the tweets and photos you share, include it in your emails and communications.  Make sure it’s added to your event flyers and brochure.  Ask your speakers, sponsors and partners to include it when they speak about the event – or topics related to it.

This is as good a week as any to get serious about engaging people in using your event hashtag.

2. Find and reach out to 3 influencers

Use sites like Ninja Outreach, Buzzsumo or Tame.it to find influencers relevant to your event, and then reach out to them.  Connect on LinkedIn, follow or tweet at them on Twitter, comment on their posts.  You may event be able find their email address, in which case email them!

Offer them a free place in exchange for some gentle promotion, or just engage them in conversion and see if they’ve heard of your event and what they think.  It may be that they didn’t know about it, but now that they do, they’re keen to be involved.  Never forget to ask how you can help them.

3. Join the conversation

Get active in leaving comments on popular blogs that are visited by your potential attendees.  Answer questions on sites like Quora.  Become a regular contributor to the best LinkedIn groups so members start to recognise you and your contributions.

Becoming part of the conversion will quickly help raise your profile, and also gives you a chance to showcase ‘thought leadership’ too.

4. Write a guest post

Use some of the content from these conversations as a prompt to write a guest post.  It only needs to be 500-1000 words long.  Send it out to your favourite blogs and see if they’re interested in publishing it.

To stand a higher chance of success, just target those sites that you comment on, and make sure the topic you’ve written about is aligned to what they typically publish.

Even if no one will print your piece, the worst case scenario is that you have fresh content for your own blog!

5. Call 3 speakers, sponsors or other event partners 

Pick up the phone!  Give three people a call this week and see how things are going.  Do they need any help to promote the event (such as pre-written content or just some ideas)?  Maybe they need some guidance on their presence at the event.

Best of all why not ask how you can help them?  Could you help raise their profile?  Remember the power of reciprocity for helping to promote your event.

Like this post?  Please leave a comment below and share with your network too!

You’ll also like ‘3 Best Practice Tips For Successfully Promoting Your Event Online‘, and you should check out this free webinar on the best practices for organising your first event. 

Got an upcoming event you’d like to organise, why not use Eventbrite? Sign-up today, it’s free!